


i have wounds only you can mend

by remuslupin



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11535096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remuslupin/pseuds/remuslupin
Summary: Jumin Han: Excited because of a stranger?Jumin Han: Your heart is insane.707: Lololololol lmfao at what Jumin said.707: Insane heart lololololJaehee Kang: Zen, isn’t it quite inappropriate to fall for someone you have never met?ZEN: Uhm. yes.ZEN: I can’t control myself.in which zen may have an insane heart, but it's never gotten him into a situation quite like this.(alternatively titled: another hanahaki fic.)





	i have wounds only you can mend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tomatoleries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatoleries/gifts).



> shoutout to tomatoleries who came up with this idea!!! i'm sorry it took so long, but i hope you like it all the same!
> 
> this isn't really a reader insert fic, but you = mc.

**Jumin Han:** Excited because of a stranger?  
**Jumin Han:** _Your heart is insane.  
_**707:** Lololololol lmfao at what Jumin said.  
**707:** Insane heart lolololol  
**Jaehee Kang:** Zen, isn’t it quite inappropriate to fall for someone you have never met?  
**ZEN:** Uhm. yes.  
**ZEN:** _I can’t control myself._

Zen, of course, had never been particularly afraid of falling.

It was the landing that usually caused all the damage.

The slow descent into the realisation of his feelings for you hadn’t felt like falling, though. It felt like _flying._  

You don’t know how he can stay up until 4am and still wake up with perfect skin and unaffected under eyes, and you’re not sure if you _want_ to know why you find him talking so openly less than a day after having met you while you read the chat’s backlog for the night. You’re well acquainted with the apparent insincerity of boys like Zen; boys who laugh at your jokes and call you brilliant until they find a _shinier_ toy, someone newer and prettier and better-- so your resolution is to take his words with a grain of salt.

In turn, he isn’t sure why he wants to impress you, why exactly he wants to _charm_ you into liking him (well, he’s _always_ wanted people to prefer him over Jumin, but this seems different). He’s been acquainted with many women over the last couple of years; many women who’ve had a profound interest in him in return, but none have been quite as intoxicating, quite as _exhilarating_ as you. The more you speak, the more questions begin to build up in his mind, and he wants to know you, wants to unwrap all of your mysteries, one by one.

\-----

Hours after you’ve stumbled into Rika’s apartment, when the sun has finally risen, your eyes dart along the screen.

“I don’t know if it’s because you joined our organization, but I can’t sleep. I want us to get along.”

After a moment, you keep scrolling.

\------

You find enjoyment in gushing about Elizabeth III with Jumin, and steadfastly ignore Jaehee’s endless commendations about one of Zen’s astoundingly obscure performances from three years ago, or his latest selfie. You laugh along with all of Seven’s comments, and challenge Yoosung’s gaming habits only so that you may prove you’re just as good, if not better than him.

He feels _underprepared_ , almost, when he talks to you: whenever he thinks you’ll zig, you zag instead. You seem utterly uninterested in his kind words, and instead rise to Jumin’s challenges with questions of your own. He tries to ignore it, to continue with a smile and another shining one-liner; but despite his intentions, somber metaphors about bringing calculators to literature exams make an appearance in his thoughts and brings a light furrow to his brows as he watches you laugh right along with Jumin fucking Han, as if fate had crafted the two of you to fit like this.

You couldn’t be more dissimilar to Zen even if you tried, and yet--

He loves you anyway.

And of course, this particular realisation surfaces around the time he starts coughing up flower petals.

Similarly to all great disasters, it begins rather insignificantly.

First comes a cough. He thinks it’s a cold, at first; and even then, it doesn’t exactly worry him (his immune system is beyond stellar, after all). When the occasional irritation at the back of his throat turns into a legitimate struggle for breath, however, Zen finally begins to feel alarmed, hand flying up and scratching at his neck as if he thinks that it will expel the foreign object that is currently trapped inside his windpipe.

His stomach contracts so violently in _panic_ that he almost has no time to scramble to the toilet bowl before his abrupt bout of fear-instilled nausea finally wins over. Stomach clenched in pain, bile bubbles to the brim of his oesophagus and results in Zen heaving on all fours, vomit trickling past the brim of the porcelain basin and sending water splashing as it lands. His lunch, he decides upon wiping the last of the sick away from the curve of his lips, does not nearly taste half as good as it had on the way down.

This, however, is far from the end.

Soon enough, the transition is made from a stray cough to full-blown and _violent_ retching. The newest intruder in his trachea, however, stubbornly continues to remain lodged until one last splutter sends a pink rose petal tumbling from his lips and fluttering to a halt in the bowl.

Hours later, while Zen watches on in a sort of helpless awe as petals free themselves from their prison in his lungs and shower down onto the hardwood floors of his room, you busy yourself with Jumin’s latest photograph, uploaded straight to the chatroom in all its blurry glory.

When he finally gathers his thoughts long enough to google the symbolism of pink roses (he doesn’t have the strength to search for the meaning of all of this, not yet), the answer he’s given is certainly rather ironic. His love may be poetic, yes; but the situation is far from sweet.

\-----

It’s when you visit his _house_ that Zen realises he’s done for (in the metaphorical sense, of course-- but it would eventually come to bring dire consequences in the physical sense, too). Plenty of women have taken interest in Jumin in the past, sure-- but he’s never responded, or even _humoured_ any of them until you.

Truth be told, Zen had always thought that he was aromantic, and he’d still bet money on the corporate heir being asexual. He supposes, however, that it doesn’t exactly _matter_ anymore-- it’s clear that you _like_ him, regardless of what he brings to the table by way of sexual orientation.

He makes you laugh.

Zen supposes that this, at least, is a blessing.

\-----

Things mostly remain the same over the next few days.

Yoosung moans about LOLOL and school, Seven makes a valiant attempt to stay cheerful in the midst of what must be thousands of odd occurrences surrounding the RFA. Jaehee worries, and Zen is--

Zen is.

He throws himself into rehearsals. Script memorisation. Vocal training, method acting-- anything that will rid his mind of you.

You, of course, do not notice his absence from the chatroom, what with being caught between the sorrow of Elizabeth III’s disastrous escape and the frustration that had accompanied Jumin’s request for you to stay inside the building.

You feel like a flower, dying in the confines of the apartment complex; and you tell Jaehee this on a lazy afternoon, the sun not quite reaching your face even as you sit on the balcony and reach out towards the light. The terrarium inside Zen’s lungs seem to mirror this (if the wilted & blackened petals that begin to fall from his lips are anything to go by).

To love is to destroy, he supposes.

\-----

You eventually return to Rika’s apartment to prepare for the party, but Zen knows that your feelings have not changed.

If they had, perhaps he’d stop feeling like _this_ \-- like he’ll never stop crying if he thinks about his circumstances for too long, like he’s just not _good_ enough for you (or anyone else), like he’s dying with each breath he takes. That last one, however, is probably true.

\-----

He barely sleeps the night before the party.

By the time the sun rises, he’s made the resolution to treat this gathering like a _second chance;_ an opportunity for you to finally get to know him.

He pulls his best coat out of his closet, arrives early, waits by the door with his hands folded securely, _hesitantly_ behind his back. Any residual hope of convincing you to change your mind, however, becomes ash in his thoughts when he finally watches you interact with Jumin.

He isn’t sure if he’s ever seen _anyone_ smile that widely, that _sincerely,_ and can only believe that the expression is coming from Jumin Han because _you’re_ the one who’s causing it in the first place.

_Whoever invented the word ‘heartbreak,’_ he thinks, _didn’t know what they were talking about._ He now knows, after all, that hearts don’t break. They _tear._ Arteries fail, veins pulsate until finally giving way, heartstrings pull and pull and _pull_ until ventricles are forcefully dividing into sections much more complicated than a matter of left and right.

There’s also the matter of the flowers, of course, but it’s the first time in over a week that he’s felt pain worse than that of the thorns in his chest. The unforgiving scratches at his lungs eventually subside to nothing more than a dull ache--

Until, that is--

Of course he decides to _propose,_ the bastard.

That’s around the time that Zen, true to his dramatic reputation, ruins everything by collapsing.

Flowers-- not mere petals, not anymore-- cascade from his lips as he coughs frantically, and though his eyes slide shut in defeat, a gentle touch to his arm contrasts harshly with the feeling of the cool marble floor beneath him and ceases his suffering, if only for a moment.

It’s you. Of course it’s you.

“Zen?” Your eyes are wide, frantic, _scared_. The flowers in his lungs unfurl, and stretch towards the sunlight that streams from you.

“Tell me you love me.”

“What--”  
  
“Please.”

“I love you, Zen.” He doesn’t know whether to feel worse about having forced you into saying it in these last few moments of his, or because he knows that you hadn’t meant it. It’s easy enough to pretend while you sit on the floor beside him, however; hands cradling his cheeks.

Vaguely, he hears Jumin approach and mention the word ‘ambulance.’ Jaehee kneels beside you silently, fingers carefully carding through Zen’s hair. The sounds around him, however, soon fade into white noise while he counts the petals around him with a clouded gaze.

One. _She loves me._

Two. _She loves me not._

“Zen?”

Three. _She loves me…_

“Zen!”

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & reviews are much appreciated, thank you!


End file.
